Garcetti cuts short East Coast trip after Zimmerman protests

Michael Finnegan

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Monday cut short a weeklong trip to the East Coast in what a spokesman described as “an abundance of caution” over civic unrest in the aftermath of the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

After less than two weeks in office, Garcetti left Los Angeles on Saturday for Pittsburgh for a family visit with friends over the weekend, followed by meetings later this week in Washington with members of Congress and Obama administration officials.

The mayor was in the air, on his way to Pittsburgh, when the Zimmerman verdict was announced, Garcetti spokesman Yusef Robb said.

The timing of Garcetti’s weekend holiday nearly 2,500 miles from Los Angeles proved awkward: Los Angeles street protests over Zimmerman’s acquittal in the racially charged murder case lasted from Sunday into Monday morning. At least eight people were arrested. It was the first event on Garcetti’s watch as mayor to test his leadership skills.

Police called off a citywide tactical alert on Monday morning. But Garcetti decided to fly back to Los Angeles on Monday “out of an abundance of caution in case post-verdict events were to intensify,” Robb said.

He was briefed by Police Chief Charlie Beck "and was in constant contact with his staff over the weekend,” Robb said.

Robb declined to identify the friends with whom Garcetti, his wife, Amy Wakeland, and their baby daughter spent Sunday in Pittsburgh.

Garcetti had been planning to stay in Maryland on Monday and Tuesday for meetings with Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Garcetti transition advisor who is helping the mayor fill the jobs of chief technology officer and deputy mayor for economic development. Mehlhorn, chief operating officer of Bloomberg Law, a legal research system, is former chief operating officer of StudentsFirst, an education reform group.

Depending on how events unfold over the next day or two in Los Angeles, Garcetti might still return to Washington. He was scheduled to meet there with Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, Transportation Secretary Anthony R. Foxx, senior White House officials David Agnew and Cecilia Munoz, and the California congressional delegation.